Masters of the Machine

In their brilliantly original 2023 book, Acemoglu and Johnson upend techno-optimism, revealing how choices we make about technology have repeatedly reshaped power and prosperity.

Technology, more specifically in the avatar of artificial intelligence today, has been extolled as being beneficial, uplifting and conducive to shared prosperity for humans. But is it really so? Or is it increasingly being manipulated and misused by a few powerful, economically well-placed elites in order to further their vested interests?

In ‘Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity,’ Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, both of whom received the Nobel prize in Economics last year, argue that today, as in certain periods in the past, technological progress is to a large extent being used for automation in order to eliminate worker employment, surveillance of workers in order to extract more out of them, and to eliminate organized trade unionism in order to reduce wages and cause the plummeting of bargaining powers of the workers. This results in the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few economically strong and influential cartels, while diminishing chances of shared prosperity among humankind.

Even in the past, this scenario has not always been so sinister and depressing. The Industrial Revolution unleashed a great wave of exploitation, but workers did rally themselves, present their views to their economic and political masters and succeeded in passing laws that vastly improved their working conditions, timings and increased their wages enabling them to live a decent and economically satisfying life.

In the United States, in the early twentieth century, laws against trusts, monopolies and the funding of federal politicians by companies were enacted. Prior to this, there were situations in which powerful corporations were giving money to Senators in order to have laws passed in their favour. Rockefeller even made a secret deal with the railways to charge his competitors more for transporting their consignments in order to eliminate competition. The Progressives, in the form of journalists, civil society activists and politicians (such as Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt) unraveled these dark secrets to the public, made them more aware of wrongdoings and were responsible for the passage of several remedial laws and acts. The New Deal launched by Franklin D. Roosevelt revolutionized the bargaining power of workers by enabling large-scale worker-employer contact.

Unfortunately, at least in the United States, trade unionism has been enfeebled, mainly because worker-employer discussions for shared productivity gains take place at the warehouse level. In Germany, for instance, workers have unions and work councils in many German companies and have been consulted in many organizational and technological decisions. They have also reversed several decisions which aimed at excessive automation. In the dual-track German system, works councils are engaged in communication and coordination in workplaces and can have a say in technology and training decisions, whereas industry unions are more focused on wage setting.

Taiwan is a shining example of how technology, in the form of digital tools, can be optimally used. Audrey Tang, today a minister in Taiwan for digital communication and transparency, previously a software entrepreneur and programmer, volunteered to help the Sunflower movement communicate its message to the broader public. After the Democratic Progressive Party came to power in the 2016 general election, Audrey has built a variety of digital tools for providing transparency in government decision making and for increasing deliberation and consultation with the public. This digital-democracy approach was used for a number of key decisions, including the regulation of the ride-sharing platform Uber and of liquor sales. Another platform, g0v, provides open data from several Taiwanese ministries, which civic hackers can use to develop alternative versions of bureaucratic services. These technologies helped Taiwan’s early and effective response to COVID-19, in which the private sector and civil society collaborated with the government to develop tools for testing and contact tracing.

New forums for virtual participation, however, can repeat the same mistakes that social media commits today, exacerbating echo chambers and extremism. Once such tools start being used extensively, some parties will come up with strategies to spread disinformation, whereas others might use such platforms for demagoguery.

The message is that technology should be used for shared prosperity, benefiting all, and not wielded as a powerful tool in the hands of a select and favoured few to dominate, spy upon, and artificially regulate the lives of the vast majority of citizens to suit their nefarious, selfish aims. Do echoes of Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ ring in the background? One shivers to conceptualize what the repercussions of misdirected technology would be if the latter were emphatically implemented.

(The writer is a Mumbai based educator. Views personal.)